72 Responses to WDTPRS POLL: Who is to blame for the present crisis?

I voted YES because I firmly believe that there the abuse crisis is a definite result of the crisis in the liturgy, the crisis in fidelity to Church teachings and practices, and the crisis in the family. Much of this developed since Vatican II and, quite possibly, since the end of World War II.

This isn’t a liberal or a conservative problem. Liberalism has nothing to do with abusing someone young. Conservatism has nothing to do with the mishandling of such priests. Saying that cafeteria Catholics are responsible for someone abusing someone else or the mishandling of said cases is a bad argument.

It seems a bit simplistic to blame “The Liberals” (whoever they are) for the problems in the church. It would be equally simplistic to blame “The Conservatives” (whoever THEY are) for covering it up. Demonizing fellow brothers and sisters in Christ seems rather repugnant on this week in particular.

I voted NO.
Blaming the current crisis on “liberals” is far too simple and, as far as I’m concerned inaccurate.
Many of the abusive priests and certainly a large number (most? I’d be interested) of the bishops who mishandled cases of abuse graduated seminary pre-V2.

The knee-jerk response of almost all bishops seems to have been to “protect the Church” by throwing up a blue wall as police do when an officer is accused. When things started to be exposed in the 80s they followed the norms of American society and relied on the experts, lawyers and therapists.

Being influenced by society and putting “protecting the Church” (thanx, guys) above seeking the truth and the good of the souls in their care is neither liberal nor conservative.

The sexual passion is the most difficult to overcome and the last to go, usually with death by the way. The sexual passion and the inability to control it affects both liberal and traditional catholics alike. I would argue the traditional catholics would fear hell as a result of their sin whereas many liberals…well you know, does hell even exist for them.They probably are sympathetic to Origen’s and Gregory of Nyssa’s view of universal salvation.

However, the liberal element in administrative Church roles have taken Vatican II and made a mockery of it. They are almost exclusively to blame for the modernism in the Roman Catholic Church; from shameful liturgy to heretical education, and every heterodox and diabolical rejection of dogma and sacred tradition they vomit from their core. May God have mercy on their souls.

Relativism is in part to blame. A willingness to listen to the culture particularly the 1960’s and 70’s – about sexual “liberation” and psychiatry is also to blame. These are attitudes associated with “progressives”. But the “conservative” misplaced sense of loyalty and a knee-jerk reaction to avoid scandal is also to blame.

The question and video are wrong in one dimension because they cast the Church in political terms. This isn’t about politics. This is about SIN. Those who are “progressives” sin and those who are “conservative” sin.

The only thing that trumps sin is Christ and His grace, which allows us to strive for holiness. We don’t need “conservative” priests and bishops (and we certainly do not need “progressive” ones)- we need HOLY priests and bishops. Along with holiness comes justice, mercy,faithfulness, right judgment, etc.

It was Progressives (liberals) who rejected Rome’s insistence homosexuals be barred from Seminaries and it was Liberal AmBishops who protected and succored homosexual predators in the priesthood who preyed upon young adolescent males.

The Hierarchy in America is suffused with liberalism and that can be been in their political pastoral concerns which always take precedence over their Duties to Teach, Rule, and Sanctify.

Liberals aren’t to blame for the acts of abuse per se, but liberals in the Church are responsible for allowing many of the abusers into seminaries under the guise of “inclusiveness.” It has been widely documented that many seminaries in the 60’s and 70’s made use of liberal, secular psychologists to screen candidates for the priesthood. Those who adhered to the Church’s teachings on sexuality were often considered to have “hangups” and were rejected, while those with a more modern view of sexuality were often allowed. Rampant homosexual subcultures flourished at many seminaries during these years (just ask Fr. Z, who has often referred to his experience in U.S. seminary as “hard time”). The advice of these same liberal psychologists was also taken in attempting to rehabilitate the offending priests instead of defrocking them and referring them to secular authorities for prosecution.

With all of this in mind, I voted “yes,” since I believe that liberalism within the Church is responsible for making this scandal as widespread as it has become. Is it 100% the fault of liberals? Of course not. But the “smoke of Satan” that Paul VI decried has infested the Church in a number of ways since Vatican II (and in truth since about 10-15 years before the council as well), and this is one of its many fruits. As Catholics, we need to understand this if we are going to be able to truly reform our Church and put these problems behind us for good.

TC: “Blaming the current crisis on “liberals” is far too simple and, as far as I’m concerned inaccurate.
Many of the abusive priests and certainly a large number (most? I’d be interested) of the bishops who mishandled cases of abuse graduated seminary pre-V2.

The knee-jerk response of almost all bishops seems to have been to “protect the Church” by throwing up a blue wall as police do when an officer is accused. When things started to be exposed in the 80s they followed the norms of American society and relied on the experts, lawyers and therapists.

Being influenced by society and putting “protecting the Church” (thanx, guys) above seeking the truth and the good of the souls in their care is neither liberal nor conservative.

I’m sorry, but I find all this blather trying to blame the Holy Father or celibacy or V2 or one group or another offensive.

Apologies to any I have offended.”

No offense taken, TC. This was indeed about bad shepherds. Historically, bishops have been the weakest link in the Church, and we all know the famous quote by St. John Crystystom: “The road to hell is paved with the skulls of bishops.”

While many of the priests and bishops who were abusers and/or their protectors were indeed ordained before Vatican II, the post-World War II/Vatican II era had a profound psychological effect on people, and, I believe that priests and bishops–abusers and protectors–were caught up in the “anything goes” mentality that takes place when prosperity and/or social unrest takes place. The post World War II to Vatican II age in America (1945-1965) was a combination of both, where materialism and prosperity were at a peak in not only the secular society but in the Church as well. Add the “sexual revolution” of the 1960’s to the mix, and look at the mess that was created. And it was all downhill from there. When the scandal hit the fan in the 1980’s, the bishops were in denial as to the extent of the problem and believed (and wrongly advised) that everything could be solved by psychological counseling and therapy. By 2002, it was if the bishops had gotten hit with a ton of bricks and reality started setting in. In the meantime, look at the rest of the state of the Church: vocations had plummeted, liturgy had become bathetic and pathetic, Mass attendance had declined more than it had ever been in the history of the Church, and Catholic schools and universities had become little more than secular institutions that had nominal religious overtones to them.

While I understand where you are coming from, TC, I still believe there is substantial evidence to blame heterodoxy and dissent from the Church to the crisis.

After reading the most recent article Fr Z posted about the priest in the Vatican who is in charge of prosecuting these cases (and subsequently realizing that only like 10% were true pedophilia), I think the liberal/homosexual agenda has more to do with the problem than people give them credit for. Granted they aren’t responsible for it all, but for A GREAT deal of it.

we keep reading about the abuse of children, but we don’t read about the ages of the children that were abused. are the pre- or post-pubescent? read Terry Mattingly’s column
“the more common problem among Catholic clergy is “ephebophilia.” This is recurrent, intense sexual interest in post-pubescent young people — teen-agers.”http://www.tmatt.net/2002/03/06/fathers-mothers-catholic-sons-part-i/

While liberals have certainly caused a liturgical, moral, and doctrinal crisis in the Church, I’m not sure if the blame for the sex scandals can be placed at their feet. These horrendous acts were taking place before VII as well, by priests who prayed the TLM. In my husbands parish, in the 1950’s, a priest was molesting altar boys and was sent away, who knows where. Whether this kind of thing was more prevalent after VII, I simply don’t know. I think perhaps it is more difficult to keep hidden now with modern communications.

I have to agree with those who say it is too simplistic to blame “liberals” for the problem. Considering some of these cases date back to the 1950s (well before the letter of Vatican II, let alone the so-called “spirit”), it seems that the problem predates ideology. There will be bad people who enter the priesthood and religious life. There can be bad people who become bishops.

So is it possible that some ordained liberals were tolerant of the abusers? Perhaps.

However, there can also be bishops who simply don’t want to deal with an issue. Whether from conflict avoidance or careerism or other causes, not everything has to do with Liberalism or Vatican II or the changing of the Mass.

Liberalism is part of the problem. But there are two other important factors: Victorian values, and Freudian and Kinseyan psychiatry. The sexual abuse of children is not something particularly Catholic and the incidence of priestly abusers in the Church is comparable to secular professions. It certainly did exist prior to the Second Vatican Council, but seems to have increased dramatically in the 60s.

People sharpshoot over the Vatican II dates and think the thesis that the current troubles can be traced to the watershed changes in the Church around the Council is disproved because there are abuse cases that predate the Council. They misunderstand the matter. What gave birth to the “Spirit of Vatican II” existed within the Church well before the Council – after all Pope Saint Pius X wrote an encyclical condemning the heresy of Modernism some 60 years before the Council (and it is Modernism – the synthesis of all heresy – that is the enemy here). Vatican II is used as shorthand for this because that is period when the Modernists, a smaller and justly persecuted group at the time of St. Pius X, consummated their treachery and took control of the institutions of the Church. It’s as a good a mark as any, it is certainly the time when many of the poisons lurking in the mud hatched out and became visible to us lay folk so instantly recognizable. Of course the post-Conciliar horrors didn’t just happen one day, the way was prepared for them for a long time.The sexual abuse crisis, and the castrated Episcopacy that refused to do anything about it (with a few notable exceptions), are but some of the many evil fruits yielded by the twisted tree of Modernism.

I voted yes, but because I think the liberal mindset set-up the Church to be unable to deal with these problems. A sterner Church institution could have more effectively dealt with the problems and could have discouraged their proliferation. A neutered code of canon law, an ignorance of the less pleasant demands of justice, etc., left the Church woefully unequipped to deal with this problem.

Wow! Went to the Youtube site. How come this guy is not better known, perhaps becase he is so strong and direct. Too direct against the Bhishops for the milquetoast types at Catholic Answers and EWTN.

P.S. If I were Karl Keating, I’d offer Fr. Z his own weekly show. Fr. You could read the phone book and make it sound thrilling. You and Lew Rockwell have the best voices on the internet. Positively Saruman-like (in a good way)

I voted ‘yes’ because I believe Catholics in the West are radically, systematically under attack in a novel and unprecedented way (although the arguments as such are nothing new).

The freedom of religion, thought and expression in the way we have always understood it as Catholics are at stake throughout the West.

But paradoxically the attacks on the Church have made the Church stronger in the past and they will do so today. Why? Because it was through suffering that Christ offered up his life to redeem mankind on the cross. It is Christ’s example and the devotion of Mary to Him which helped the Church find a way through the greatest perils in the past.

The Church should speak out through its bishops and priests without fear of the consequences – it has nothing to lose and by speaking the truth it has everything to gain!

The Church should speak even more publically about sin and redemption through the sacrament of reconciliation. All this out of love for human beings who through this sacrament can return to closeness with Jesus in the Eucharist.

Be true to God to the very end, be true to Jesus and his suffering. This is really all about the death and resurrection of our Lord, now before our eyes during Easter!

The “liberals” in the Church are those who would have the Church meander around meaningless distractions, deconstructing the Church as they go along (and dragging us with them), everything to turn our attention away from Christ and His sacrifice, and what it means to the world. They detest Christian spirituality, which is intellectual as well as from the heart, and they detest the piety of simple people which goes straight to Jesus and Mary. Most importantly, they’ve forgotten that there’s always a way back (see above)!

The sexual abuse crises is absolutely the result of the liberalism/modernism/heresy that was prevalent during and after Vatican II. This is not to say that these things didn’t exist prior to the Council, but they completely infiltrated every part of the Church after Vatican II.

It’s far too simplistic to blame progressives and liberals for the problems of the Church. It makes for good political theater, but it inaccurately shifts the blame to the other. It’s not that I wish to minimize the actions taken by progressives and liberals, but rather to point out that it’s not merely them. Judas betrayed our Lord, but let’s not forget that Peter denied that he knew his Lord, and that almost every disciple of the Lord fled during our Lord’s Passion.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn writes: “Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart – and through all human hearts.”

Or perhaps, we should take a page from Chesterton in response to a request for submissions on the topic of “What’s Wrong with the World?”:

Of course liberals are to blame, they liberated the priests from the disciplines of the Church allowing them to commit crime after crime without any restriction, in their vocabulary liberty means licence.

Actually I think it is BOTH! The “Bride of Christ” is being pulled by both forces claiming to be “true to his word” and it is we the FAITHFUL and PRAYERFUL that keep it together. It is us, that are the BODY on this earth that stand against the gates of Hell. (very well put “patrick f”) It is Divine intervention that keeps it so.

Considering that the Irish sex abuse scandal reports shows that abuse dates back at least to the 1930s and 1940s (and who knows how much further back–and so much for the “greatest generation” at least in this regard) it’s simply a logical fallacy to blame anything on Vatican II or the concurrent and subsequent liberal onslaught. Further, such illogical conclusions only occlude the true reason(s) behind the abuse scandal–one which I don’t think that the church has even made a dent in uncovering yet. This sort of false debate pitting “imposed celibacy” on one hand against “liberalism” on the other only does further disservice to the church. Something went seriously awry a long time ago and I really don’t think we really know what “it” is yet. And I seriously doubt whether Michael Voris has done any research whatsoever on the topic. But if so, I’d love to hear about it.

Now about that video: WOW, an STB!! Ooooh. I’m soooooooooo impressed. “Garden of Olives”? C’mon, read your Bible a little more closely. AND he can spell “precipice!” :) And what’s with that pencil? (I see it makes a return appearance in other videos.) Very silly. And not helpful for the cause.

There’s no way to tell how many instances of sexual abuse occurred prior to Vatican II, which makes this argument somewhat ridiculous.

In general, people were more trusting of the church, even when her priests committed immoral acts. Similarly, people were hesitant to admit to abuse or to point fingers. So we can thank Vatican II for opening up the Church and allowing the sunshine (the best disinfectant) in.

Homosexuality and, to a lesser extent, sexual abuse of minors have probably always been problems in the Church as everywhere else; at times they were dealt with promptly and correctly, at times not. Cases occurred in the US even in the decades prior to Vatican II (I cite this period because we can accurately trace their resolution) and in some cases were covered up and the guilty were never punished. Cardinal Cushing is known to have permitted this, which is probably one of the reasons that Boston got as bad as it did as fast as it did after Vatican II.

The difference is that the Vatican II “progressive” Catholics joyfully adopted the world’s standards in dealing with sexual deviants, whether pedophiles or homosexuals. No longer was it a moral problem and a sin in addition to being a crime (in the case of pedophilia), it was suddenly an adjustment problem to be treated with therapy. This was true in secular courts, too. Nobody ever mentions how many violent pedophiles in the 1970s and 1980s were either sentenced to “therapy” or released after trivial sentences…to rape and kill again. Vatican II opened the windows, allright, and the Zeitgeist flew in and took up residence.

I’m simply saying that the debate over causes is typically framed by presenting two possible causes: imposed celibacy on one hand and liberalism (with Vatican II or “the spirit of Vatican II”–see the poll–or the 60s, often via metonymy) on the other. I certainly don’t know what has caused these scandals; all I can do is speculate–because to my knowledge, no one has really wanted to undertake serious research in an attempt to find out WHY this has occurred and “who’s to blame,” the topic at hand. In the cases where blame is laid at the feet of V II, it’s certainly a fallacious assertion, since it’s now clear that the scandal pre-dates the Council. If you want to blame the scandal on modernism that’s certainly a step in the right direction–but again, how do we know this is the case? How do we know these systematic abuses don’t predate the 19th century? Or even earlier? It’s time for the Church to do some serious soul-searching on its OWN (not simply following an agenda set by the Boston Globe or the New York Times) and figure this out PDQ–or the Church will just continue to “play defense,” always in response mode to the constant drip, drip, drip of the same. I think the last few months have show us all that will not just go away on its own; this will only get worse.

Children molestation by adults ever existed, even by some bad priests. One cannot deny this.
But when that evil reaches such a high level, this is unprecedented.
When some seminaries are 100 pc homosexual to the point to discourage
heterosexual men to get in, yes this began after VATII.
This council was a catastrophe.

Dave, the Ryan Report into abuse in Irish industrial schools documents abuse as far back as 1914, and up until the 1970s. Roughly about half of all abuse cases reported to the Ryan Commission were perpetrated in the 1960s.

Incidentally, the prevalence of abuse was grossly exaggerated in media reports.

Silly me, I thought the crisis had to do with criminally perverted mens’ sexuality (the abusers) and criminal perverted mens’ hypocrisy (their bishops). Bernard Law and Humberto Medeiros and Robert Banks, to pick just a few liars and scoundrels from Boston, are or were no liberals. In the parish I grew up in in that archdiocese, three pastors in a row were accused. Joseph Fusoni was a conservative credibly accused, Rev Tom Curran is a middle-of-the-road sort who was cleared of accusations, and Bill Cummings was a liberal rapist (to the extent he had politics; I don’t think he had the brains to do more than follow the crowd) who died of HIV/AIDS. All of them were ordained by Richard Cardinal Cushing, who wasn’t particularly liberal.

I voted “yes”, but I think that there’s a great deal more involved. It truthfully began in the “garden”. The serpent’s domain is the world, the flesh and his own ability to deceive man, who often is not paying the least bit of attention. It arrives with a fragment of light, disguising a lot of offal. All of us have swallowed a share at one time or another. The more we swallow, the dimmer our minds get, the less able we are to see the truth. How easy it is to become blind. History shows us that we are under attack at all times, and usually we fail to detect that it is a spiritual battle, a battle for our minds, hearts — and the final prize — our souls.

The popes have been warning us of this “age or era” for more than a century. Our Lady of Fatima came and told us how to protect ourselves and our families. And the greatest sadness, tragedy, loss, is that we didn’t take her seriously, and still don’t. She has continued to beg for our attention in approved apparition after approved apparition — and some not approved. Let’s see: prayer, confession, fasting, the rosary, penance, The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass etc. So mankind must reap what he has sown and the only way through this darkness is to Trust in Jesus and His Sacred Heart which floods us with His mercy if we ask, for ourselves and our families.

We focus right now on the clergy sexual abuse, but how many have apostsized, how many no longer believe in the Real Presence of Jesus, how many live with emotional or physical abusers? How much adultery, how much killing of the preborn, how much elderly abuse or “mercy killing”–and watch that one grow. We don’t have to be “priests” or “clergy” to commit and hid, those sins. The effects of all sin are past on generation to generation because of the damage done by adults to adults to children who have children who have children. He knows he’s lost the war, but he’ll take as many victims captive as he can for as long as he can. Harsh totalitarianism like communism strengthens man to recognize his need for God and his dependance on Him. Soft totalitarianism envelopes us so gently, so softly, and so comfortably that we don’t even realize we’ve given ourselves away. Like the frogs in the cold water, our pot is slowly being brought to a boil.

I have the odd boulder or two that would make it onto the pile, but most are pebbles of varying sizes. Yet taken together, heaped up and pressed down, I’d be flat under a mountain.

If you think homosexuality is somehow “new,” you’re wrong. If you think homosexuality is somehow connected to pedophilia, you’re also wrong.
Comment by lhwhitaker

Pedophilia is usually considered gender neutral because the children have not yet entered sexuality. But my understanding is that most of the cases concern young adolescents (hebephilia or ephebephlia), who have begun to enter the years of sexuality. Thus, it would be a homosexual act between a male priest and young adolescent altar boy.

All the priests in my “parish of origin” who were accused of sexual abuse of minors around the 60’s and ’70’s(and, sadly, there were quite a few of them) were those who played fast and loose with the rubrics of the Mass. When one rule (or many of them) doesn’t apply, apparently celibacy doesn’t either.

Bill Donohue tried this same argument. Do you *really* want to argue that if the victim was 11 years and one day old the crime is somehow different than if he were 10 years, 364 days old? Regardless of the legal definition, it’s sex with a child, no matter how you slice it.

Bill Donohue tried this same argument. Do you really want to argue that if the victim was 11 years and one day old the crime is somehow different than if he were 10 years, 364 days old? Regardless of the legal definition, it’s sex with a child, no matter how you slice it.
Comment by lhwhitaker

You’ve missed the point. I’m not minimizing what these priests did. I’m refuting your argument that it was not a homosexual act.

Like rape, which is what this really is, it’s a question of power and dominance, and not sexuality. A rape is not an instance of getting one’s jollies, but rather of demonstrating power over the victim. Yet, for some reason, y’all want to make this a “gay” problem. It’s not.

Male-male sex is homosexual sex. The cases are primarily about teen boys. The comment about 10 year, 264 days vs 11 years is just silly. Do you really think that homosexuality is NOT a cause at all when 80& of the victims are male?

Homosexuality is a component to the issue we are facing. To dismiss it out of hand suggests an agenda. Sorry.

No, I don’t think it’s a cause at all. If the priests are homosexual, then why aren’t they out finding someone their own age? The priests are taking advantage of those they have the most direct access with, namely young boys.

And the Pope has said that homosexuality and pedophilia are two separate things. Why are you arguing with the Holy Father?

They don’t find someone their own age because you have to consider why some people might run away from the priesthood to deal with their feelings. Rather than deal with them directly, the suppress them and run away. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work and they have the maturity of boys themselves. It is not a surprise that when they give into their temptation, they are attracted to boys.

Have you ever been in a minor seminary? Back in the day, that is where most priests started out. I was in one. Many of my class mates later “come out.” Way more than one would expect based even on the overstated incidence of 10% homosexuality. Some of why they were looking into the priesthood in the first place was their trying to deal with this particular cross they are asked to bear.

Oh, btw, the Holy Father is a theologian, and a darn good one, but he is not a psychologist – and is clearly not infallible on that issue. While he is right that how we deal with the abuse issue is not the same as how we deal with homosexuality in general, it would be a mistake to believe that homosexuality has nothing to do with it.

No, I don’t think it’s a cause at all. If the priests are homosexual, then why aren’t they out finding someone their own age?

That’s another topic. This one concerns criminal activity.

BTW, since when does sexual preference include a certain age range?

The priests are taking advantage of those they have the most direct access with, namely young boys.

Let me know when you hear some cases of priests abusing young girls.

And the Pope has said that homosexuality and pedophilia are two separate things. Why are you arguing with the Holy Father?
Comment by lhwhitaker

That is exactly my point. Pedophilia refers to those not yet in puberty. Most of these are not cases of pedophilia, but rather ephephilia or hebephilia, both referring to those who have begun to enter puberty.

Like rape, which is what this really is, it’s a question of power and dominance, and not sexuality.

Power and dominance can be pursued in sports, business, or chess. In this case, it’s expressed in sexuality.

A rape is not an instance of getting one’s jollies, but rather of demonstrating power over the victim.

Power and sex are not mutually exclusive. That’s why ambitious men sometimes marry the boss’s daughter and why some soldiers who want to be generals sometimes marry generals’ daughters (cf Al Haig and David Petraeus).

My understanding from what I have read, is that there is a fairly large portion of the gay community that wants man-boy sex made legal. And as far as I can understand the age of the “boy” would be pre-school. The “logic” behind this is apparently that children have a right to express their sexuallity too. Watch what happens in the future.

lhwhitaker, You are either disingenuous or ignorant about what the pope said.
you quote the pope’s comment from an airplane conversation to a reporter taken out of any context. This is not a pronouncement that asks for my “belief and obedience”.

The only thing other than that line that the MSM loved to reproduce, was that he was talking about zero tolerance for pedophiles in the priesthood. He was separating the discussion of pedophiles in the priesthood from the different discussion of homosexuals in the priesthood. That is not an endorsement of homosexuals in the priesthood – it looks like he was correcting a reporter who wanted to put words in the popes mouth by generalizing beyond what he was speaking of. So instead, the reporter quotes the pope out of context – either way it causes controversy.

Not only does the reporter quote out of context, we now get people running around saying “see what the pope said” and telling us we need to “obey” his correction to a reporter on an airplane. Come on man, use your brain and don’t go around quoting something out of context and asking people to obey.

In that case, sir (or madam) you had better go over everything again – and this time, don’t miss out or skim over any words, reports or contributions that may not be to your taste.

Seriously, to seek to blame one ‘faction’ or another, no matter how loathsome you may believe them to be, is to risk going down a similar road again. ‘It’s all their fault’ sounds easy – but it isn’t true. ‘Oh, well, the ones before V2 may not have BEEN V2 liberals but they were infected with modernism’. No, there were dyed-in-the-wool traditionalists involved as well.

Wouldn’t it be easy if we could point at a cowering group and say ‘it’s all their fault’ and send them out into the wilderness, laden with our sins? Then get back to whatever we were doing beforehand, smug in the belief that we’d cured everything?

Do that and you lay yourself open to the same thing again – the same thing being a pattern of behaviour that will seriously undermine and damage the Church. What will it be next time? I have no idea. But smugness and prejudice will ensure it happens.

How about moving away from ‘it’s THEIR fault’ to ‘it’s OUR responsibility’ to clean it up and ensure it doesn’t happen again?

lhwhitaker: Do you really want to argue that if the victim was 11 years and one day old the crime is somehow different than if he were 10 years, 364 days old? Regardless of the legal definition, it’s sex with a child, no matter how you slice it.

May be different legally …But morally, as common sense tells you and me, in either case we’re talking about grievous sin by a homosexual predator. No need to mince around about it.

I need to direct everyone’s attention back to the purpose of this entry.

At the top of this entry is a POLL, which asks a QUESTION, which is the TOPIC of this entry.

Therefore you might want to make your final point about the digression.

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"We as Catholics have not properly combated (the culture) because we have not been taught our Catholic Faith, especially in the depth needed to address these grave evils of our time. This is a failure of catechesis both of children and young people that has been going on for fifty years. It is being addressed, but it needs much more radical attention... What has also contributed greatly to the situation is an exaltation of the virtue of tolerance which is falsely seen as the virtue which governs all other virtues. In other words, we should tolerate other people in their immoral actions to the extent that we seem also to accept the moral wrong. Tolerance is a virtue, but it is certainly not the principal virtue; the principal virtue is charity... Charity means speaking the truth. I have encountered it (not speaking the truth) many times myself as a priest and bishop. It is something we simply need to address. There is far too much silence — people do not want to talk about it because the topic is not 'politically correct.' But we cannot be silent any longer."

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"Where priest and people together face the same way, what we have is a cosmic orientation and also in interpretation of the Eucharist in terms of resurrection and trinitarian theology. Hence it is also an interpretation in terms of parousia, a theology of hope, in which every Mass is an approach to the return of Christ."

"In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. ... If all Catholics are obliged to oppose the legal recognition of homosexual unions, Catholic politicians are obliged to do so in a particular way, in keeping with their responsibility as politicians." CDF 2003

One of the most dangerous errors is that civilization is automatically bound to increase and spread. The lesson of history is the opposite; civilization is a rarity, attained with difficulty and easily lost. The normal state of humanity is barbarism, just as the normal surface of the planet is salt water. Land looms large in our imagination and civilization in history books, only because sea and savagery are to us less interesting.
— C. S. Lewis

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For contemplation…

"One of the few things in life you can be absolutely sure about is that, if Management tells you it doesn't like your Tone, you are getting something right."

"Latin is a precise, essential language. It will be abandoned, not because it is unsuitable for the new requirements of progress, but because the new men will not be suitable for it. When the age of demagogues and charlatans begins, a language like Latin will no longer be useful, and any oaf will be able to give a speech in public and talk in such a way that he will not be kicked off the stage. The secret to this will consist in the fact that, by making use of words that are general, elusive, and sound good, he will be able to speak for an hour without saying anything. With Latin, this is impossible."

- - Giovanni Guareschi

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Let us pray…

Grant unto thy Church, we beseech
Thee, O merciful God, that She, being
gathered together by the Holy Ghost, may
be in no wise troubled by attack from her
foes.
O God, who by sin art offended and by
penance pacified, mercifully regard the
prayers of Thy people making supplication
unto Thee,and turn away the scourges of
Thine anger which we deserve for our sins.
Almighty and Everlasting God, in
whose Hand are the power and the
government of every realm: look down upon
and help the Christian people that the heathen
nations who trust in the fierceness of their
own might may be crushed by the power of
thine Arm. Through our Lord Jesus Christ,
Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee
in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world
without end. R. Amen.

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Because it matters what children read…

I carry one of these super-strong rosaries in my spare mag pouch! The Swiss Guards have them too!

The Swiss Guard have these rosaries!For the story clickHERE and HERE (esp. 18:00)

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Food For Thought

“The legalization of the termination of pregnancy is none other than the authorization given to an adult, with the approval of an established law, to take the lives of children yet unborn and thus incapable of defending themselves. It is difficult to imagine a more unjust situation, and it is very difficult to speak of obsession in a matter such as this, where we are dealing with a fundamental imperative of every good conscience — the defense of the right to life of an innocent and defenseless human being.”

For your consideration…

"One of the most dangerous errors is that civilization is automatically bound to increase and spread. The lesson of history is the opposite; civilization is a rarity, attained with difficulty and easily lost. The normal state of humanity is barbarism, just as the normal surface of the planet is salt water. Land looms large in our imagination and civilization in history books, only because sea and savagery are to us less interesting."

- C.S. Lewis

More food for thought:

“I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.”

Francis Card. George

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"It will never be known what acts of cowardice have been committed for fear of not looking sufficiently progressive."

Charles Pierre PéguyNotre Patrie, 1905

"If I ought to write the truth, I am of the mind that I ought to flee all meetings of bishops, because I have never seen any happy or satisfactory outcome to any council, nor one that has deterred evils more than it has occasioned their acceptance and growth."

St. Gregory Nazianzus
ep. 131 - AD 382

“We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women. If we do not reach that time, then our children and grandchildren will reach it, and they will sell your sons as slaves at the slave market.”

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And... GO TO CONFESSION!

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

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Food For Thought

“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites. . . . Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

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